10 Gigabit Ethernet is beginning to make inroads into the public
sector.
The University of Strathclyde has become the first academic
institution in the UK to implement a 10 Gigabit Ethernet core
network.
The university came up against the limits of its existing Ethernet
infrastructure, could not increase bandwidth any further and was
suffering from redundancy and failover problems.
To overcome this, the decision was taken to opt for 10 Gigabit
Ethernet technology, which is as yet largely untried outside the
service provider arena. The university saw the opportunity to
provide a massive increase in bandwidth for its 50,000 students in
67 buildings on the 500-acre site.
Besides the scale of the network, data demands are also high, with
large amounts of scientific data being moved between the drug
research department and the institute of photonics.
Strathclyde University chose Foundry hardware - Big Iron 8000 and
15000 layer-three switches - which were implemented by Total
Network Solutions. The 10 Gigabit Ethernet link provides high
performance, intelligent switching between the two main
datacentres, which are more than 1km apart.
But what swung the decision in favour of such a relatively untried
technology?
George Farquhar, the university's assistant director of IT, said,
"It is very new so there were concerns, but we knew the technology
was nearly there and we had not seen any adverse reports. We have a
development relationship and we are happy to take technologies and
try to prove things.
"Probably the biggest question we were asked was whether we really
needed it. The answer was that we have always tried to be 18 months
to two years ahead of the users, and we cannot hold up the demands
of our science departments."
The decision to implement the upgrade was relatively
straightforward, and the physical installation and its reliability
have given no cause for concern. "I was quite astonished at the
ease of installation and how good it has been since. The hardest
part of the whole operation was walking between buildings,"
Farquhar said.
The contract with Total Network Solutions is for three years and is
divided into three phases. The first was the go-live of the core 10
Gigabit Ethernet switches; and the second and third phases will see
the upgrade of all remaining legacy equipment and installation of
Foundry layer four to layer seven Serveriron switches, which allow
intelligent routing for web server optimisation and content
distribution.